Switzerland_2008

1_Wallis-Fieschertal
Märjelensee at the side of the Aletsch glacier

Oh yes if you look at the side of the Aletsch glacier from a bit higher up it looks like tiny pieces of ice down there. As you can guess ... it's not! With a length of 23km it is the longest ice flow of the Alps. Alongside the Aletsch glacier if you follow the path to the left side you can see the Märjelensee. This mountain lake used to be much bigger. Around 1900 the Märjelensee was 1700m long and 460m wide. The depth in the middle of the lake was about 23m with huge blocks of ice floating in the water. The lake feeded itself with water of the glacier but this arm of the Aletsch glacier melted down and no longer reached the lake. The water level of the lake is since then very variable even sometimes completely empty.

If you are a bit closer to the glacier we just look like peanuts. I dropped some hydrophones in the iceblocks at this side end of the glacier and you can hear a constant flow of water. A bit further to the right we managed to have a look under the ice. Beautiful transparant blue and lots of water drops.

Hydrophones Iceflow

Microphones Icecave

Accelerometer Iceskin

1_Bern-Gadmertal
Trift Glacier

When global warming takes place glaciers melt - some expecially fast, such as the Trift Glacier. Since quite some years now also the tongue of this glacier has a lake. Before the Trift Hut could still be reached by foot via the glacier tongue. In 2004 a suspension bridge was built. The bridge is quite spectacular with it's 100 meters high and 170 meters long. 

During the climb to the Trift hut we had extremely windy weather conditions. The bridge was closed shortly after us and the last metres up felt very scary. Luckily the amazing landscape around us made it all very worth. Due to this no sound recordings were made during the climb only the howling wind from inside the hut.

The next day early in the morning we started the descend. A storm was forecasted so we left around 6. Down at the lift you cross a big stream of water that melts down from the glacier. It's a massive amount of sound. I held the microphones on different positions, starting alongside the river and holding it under some rocks in the river in the end.

This whole trip started with the nicest melody ever. A flock of mountain cows walking down the mountain.